Microsoft Moderating Offensive Content on Xbox Live

Microsoft published a story today reminding everyone that the company has a special team in place that filters out offensive content on the company’s Xbox Live service. One of the team members, referred to as the Xbox LIVE Enforcement Unicorn Ninja, is there to continually ensure the service is “safe, non-offensive, and fun” for all subscribers.

“If you’re playing a game on Xbox LIVE, and somebody snipes you from across the map and you drop the F-bomb, we’re not going to ban you – not for the occasional slip. We focus on the really bad stuff. We are not here to be the arbiters of all speech. But there are certainly some kinds of communication on Xbox LIVE that crosses a line – racism, homophobia, sexism, offensive comments about nationalities, and more.” said Boris Erickson, Xbox LIVE Enforcement Unicorn Ninja.

With more than 35 million users on the service, more and more complaints of offensive behavior, speech, and material are being reported. This resulted in the creation of this special team to enforce the code of conduct that all users had to agree to when subscribing.

“Looking at the stats, the cross-section of bad apples we deal with every day is small – typically less than one percent of the overall population. The user complaint volume has tended to stay relatively flat compared to the line of new users. What that says to me is that our efforts are having an impact, and also that we’re broadening our audience. We’re bringing in different people that want to experience different things on Xbox LIVE, not just gaming, and at the end of the day that’s going to improve everything,” said the teams director, Stephen Toulouse.

According to Toulouse, many users believe they are anonymous when online and that they are exempt from being caught. Toulouse reminds them that they are always watching.

Toulouse offers 4 tips for subscribers. 1) Don’t be a jerk to other subscribers, 2) Be excellent to each other, 3) Parents should be involved, and 4) If you see something, say something. You can read the full Xbox Live Code of Conduct here.

Recently, we learned that the Xbox Live subscriber growth was at an all time high thanks to the Kinect. The overall Xbox platform, which includes the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, continues to grow popular and make Microsoft some nice revenue all thanks to the Kinect. More and more users have subscribed to Xbox Live because of the Kinect and Microsoft thinks that it will only continue to grow.